1. Field of Invention
The present disclosure relates generally to state machines, and in particular, to incorporating state machine controls into existing non-state machine environments while reducing disruption to the existing environment.
2. Description of Background
InfiniBand® Architecture (IBA) is an industry standard architecture for connecting complex systems. Particularly, InfiniBand® (IB), which is a form of System Area Network (SAN), defines a multicast facility that allows a Channel Adapter (CA) to send a packet to a single address and have it delivered to multiple ports. The InfiniBand® Architecture is described in the InfiniBand® standard, which is available at http://www.infinibandta.org, and also hereby incorporated in its entirety by reference.
The transition of existing system software and firmware for use with IBA creates a number of challenges. For example, some older systems relied on specialized hardware for buffer handling and other communications related tasks. The specialized hardware may operate based on older coupling technologies, and may be well understood using existing system software and/or firmware. Furthermore, the existing code may also be well understood. However, the new transport technology offered with IBA makes it difficult to use software designed for specialized hardware to reliably control communications. Moreover, extensive modification and/or re-writing of existing software to facilitate new features is troublesome and time-consuming.